Arabic is without a doubt the dominant language, and is the official language in every North African country. However Arabic dialects are mutually unintelligible, so there's no way a tourist speaking standard Arabic could understand a Moroccan speaking his dialect. However, standard Arabic is always the official language, and with the exception of Western Sahara, almost all urban people are able to speak it.

French is the most widely known second language in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, due to much of the area's history as a French colony. In Libya and Egypt, English is the dominant second language (except among older Libyans, where Italian is more prevalent)